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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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You're missing at least one thing that's going on - some rapes (or at least rape-adjacent behavior) are genuinely dissimilar to other crimes in the lack of mens rea from the perpetrator. The canonical example is a guy that takes a girl that's obviously blitzed out of her mind upstairs at a party. Sure, you can provide the admonishment that she shouldn't have gotten so drunk in the first place and you're going to be correct, but it's also plausible that it's feasible to shift the culture around hooking up with very drunk girls from it being funny to it being socially unacceptable. You're not going to convince Ted Bundy to not rape with a social awareness campaign, but you might convince some men that it would be a bad thing to take advantage of a girl that doesn't have her wits about her.

There are many objections to the above that can be offered, but my impression is that this is the type of thing that "teach men not to rape" is referring to.

You're probably right. But I dislike this behavior of expanding the definition of rape. At least 15 years ago, rape was a violent brutal crime, one where someone was trying to dominate someone else. Not something someone could do by accident. Mens rea was almost definitely necessary for a rape to occur.

Expanding this definition makes it so that people who probably haven't done anything that terrible or didn't intend to do anything that terrible, and maybe made a bad decision now are lumped in with violent psychopaths. It also takes away nuance from language. It may have also had the effect that you're positing, too, of making people less likely to hook up with drunk girls.

Hooking up with a girl who's too drunk to say no is, in fact, very bad behavior.

I agree. But it's not rape.

So if you drug someone and have sex with them that isn't rape?

Assuming they can consent, no. It's very bad and should wind you in prison for a long time. But it's not rape, because that word means something specific. "Rape" is not a catch all term for "any evil behavior involving sex".

This is a special place.

  • -15

So if you drug someone and have sex with them that isn't rape?

Assuming they can consent, no.

...Speak plainly. What's your actual disagreement with the above?

If someone takes a lot of drugs, consensually or otherwise, that doesn't open the door to "sexing" up their passed out body. Again...jesus christ.

  • -10
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